The protagonist of the game and the "Dark Apprentice" from the DS ending and Distant Thunder seem to represent the end result of the difficult cloning process as detailed in the game's databank.

Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 12:13 am

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Crash OverrideMaster

Joined: 22 Dec 2010Posts: 1962

I wouldn't be surprised if the all-inclusive nature of SW continuity results in that being true, but that just makes the entire plot absolutely illogical and stupid. If there's nothing special or unique about the protagonist and Vader already has a superior clone to replace him, why does Vader hire Boba Fett to bring him in?

I know people at TFN like to imagine it's some master plan by Vader to trap the Rebel fleet or be captured, but that's absurd. He has no way of knowing that the Starkiller clone is going to run to the Rebels and be in a position to have the Rebel fleet attack Kamino; as far as Vader knows, Kota is on Cato Neimodia and is going to die, and he's the person that had the pull. Who is going to trust Starkiller? The Rebel leaders he saved aren't going to. They don't even reveal Starkiller's existence to them at the end of the story because they know they won't trust him.

And even afterward during the fleet battle, once the alleged trap has sprung why does Vader continue to go through the song and dance of trying to turn Starkiller back into his service if he already has a better clone he's satisfied with, and his ultimate intent is for this other clone's final test is to stab this Starkiller through the back? Why not have him fight him one and one instead of stabbing him in the back? Or if that's satisfactory, why not just have him ambush him from the start instead of trying to force the protagonist's submission with Juno? Or stab him in the back then at that point? Why allow for a margin of error at all? Just to prove a point? Don't Sith apprentices tend to turn on their masters, yet Vader is putting his life in this clone's hands? It makes absolutely no sense.

The plot was very obviously written with the idea in mind that there was no Dark Apprentice and Vader needed the protagonist Starkiller to serve him. And if Vader is killing the aberrant clones that preceded Starkiller then why are there so many for Starkiller to fight? It's just so obvious that the story was written with the protagonist intended to be the original and that Vader had no success cloning him. They added the Dark Apprentice in because they needed to have some sort of a downer dark side ending, and the "Distant Thunder" cinematics were added because it's a godawful ending that's a complete deus ex machina because they had no idea how else to do a dark side ending and it required some sort of explanation that was in no way forthcoming in the actual story.

If TFU3 -- should it exist -- follows up on the Dark Apprentice, which I don't think that it will, then that's just another strike against Star Wars continuity in my eyes, because that's awful, awful storytelling. And if it doesn't have the Dark Apprentice, I bet Wookieepedia will keep the page up and assume that the Dark Apprentice is still out there... somewhere...

Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 2:15 pm

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Arawn_FennKnight

Joined: 07 Apr 2011Posts: 240Location: Damn you Shonda Rhimes!!!

Crash Override wrote:

Who is going to trust Starkiller? The Rebel leaders he saved aren't going to.

Yeah, why would they trust someone who saved them?

Crash Override wrote:

They don't even reveal Starkiller's existence to them at the end of the story because they know they won't trust him.

I don't understand this sentence.

Crash Override wrote:

Don't Sith apprentices tend to turn on their masters, yet Vader is putting his life in this clone's hands? It makes absolutely no sense.

"Sith apprentices tend to turn on their masters" does not mean that a Sith can never appear to place his life in an apprentice's hands. At this point the Dark Apprentice has no incentive to kill Vader, and it's not at all clear that the "perfect clone" is a true Sith apprentice anyway ( Rule of Two, anyone? ) or that he could so easily escape Vader's control.

Crash Override wrote:

The plot was very obviously written with the idea in mind that there was no Dark Apprentice and Vader needed the protagonist Starkiller to serve him.

Why can't Vader have more than one puppet? Staarkiller and the "perfect clone" serve different purposes. The "perfect clone" is not useful as a Rebel Alliance infiltration tool in the way that Staarkiller is.

Crash Override wrote:

And if Vader is killing the aberrant clones that preceded Starkiller then why are there so many for Starkiller to fight?

Because he didn't kill all of them? This is a non-point.

Crash Override wrote:

It's just so obvious that the story was written with the protagonist intended to be the original and that Vader had no success cloning him.

It may be "obvious" to you, but that just means you've made up your mind. Don't the novels ( if not the first game ) establish that the original died?_________________Hir yw'r dydd a hir yw'r nos, a hir yw aros Arawn.

Posted: Sat Dec 24, 2011 3:13 pm

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Crash OverrideMaster

Joined: 22 Dec 2010Posts: 1962

Arawn_Fenn wrote:

Yeah, why would they trust someone who saved them?

Well, let's see:

1) First, he had to save them because he betrayed them to the Emperor.

2) They thought he died, given that he was already on the Empire's side once how do they know it's not another trick? (Like in the Dark Side ending with the Dark Apprentice doing the same thing)

3) When Rahm Kota returns in the Rogue Shadow, they don't even trust Rahm Kota because he had been captured so they believe it could be an Imperial trick. They're paranoid.

4) Starkiller doesn't even have any interest in being part of the Rebel Alliance and his primary concern throughout the entire story is to find Juno, and his aiding the Rebel Alliance is because their motives overlap. Only once he finds her does he choose to stick around, but only because she's in the Rebel Alliance.

5) Starkiller: If his claims are true, then Kamino is much more of a threat than any ordinary stormtrooper factory.

Kota: Maybe. But the Alliance couldn't pull off an attack like this without your help.

Starkiller: They'll have to. They wouldn't trust me to lead anything yet, anyway.

Kota: I would.

Starkiller: The Alliance is more than just you and your militia, Kota.

Arawn_Fenn wrote:

I don't understand this sentence.

"Until they knew for certain where Starkiller had come from, would the Rebel Alliance ever really believe in him? Would Juno herself, had she not seen him with her own eyes?

"Bail Organa's words came back to her. 'I don't trust that kind of power.' He, at least, would be especially difficult to convince."

"'I'll encourage him to keep a low profile,' she said, confident that Vader and Kota himself would give the Alliance leadership plenty to argue about for now."

The Rebel leaders don't even know that Starkiller is alive at the end of the game because his existence would just be another point of contention with perhaps some trusting him and others like Bail Organa not. The only reason the Rebels attacked Kamino was because Kota furnished the data that Starkiller provided and didn't reveal that Starkiller provided it, nor did he reveal that Starkiller exists. How does Vader predict this? Vader didn't plan anything, he just wanted his apprentice back.

Arawn_Fenn wrote:

"Sith apprentices tend to turn on their masters" does not mean that a Sith can never appear to place his life in an apprentice's hands. At this point the Dark Apprentice has no incentive to kill Vader, and it's not at all clear that the "perfect clone" is a true Sith apprentice anyway ( Rule of Two, anyone? ) or that he could so easily escape Vader's control.

So, since he's not a true Sith apprentice because Vader is, he wouldn't betray Vader the same way that Vader is planning to betray Sidious. Those thoughts won't exist until he's a legit Sith apprentice.

Arawn_Fenn wrote:

Why can't Vader have more than one puppet? Staarkiller and the "perfect clone" serve different purposes. The "perfect clone" is not useful as a Rebel Alliance infiltration tool in the way that Staarkiller is.

I agree, why can't Vader have more than one puppet? Except when Starkiller finally gives into the dark side and plans to kill Vader, he has his other puppet kill him instead of just preventing the death blow. It makes no sense. If Vader is trying to turn the protagonist back into his service, why have him killed the minute he turns? It's like if in Return of the Jedi when Luke goes nuts and starts wailing on Vader, Palpatine just impales Luke from behind without trying to rein him in. Yeah...

Arawn_Fenn wrote:

Because he didn't kill all of them? This is a non-point.

So he kills the ones that look like healthy human beings (as seen in "Distant Thunder" if we take it for truth), but keeps the ones that are mutated and deformed. Makes sense.

Arawn_Fenn wrote:

It may be "obvious" to you, but that just means you've made up your mind. Don't the novels ( if not the first game ) establish that the original died?

Yes, it's obvious to me because rather than looking for the story to make sense either from an "all-inclusive continuity" standpoint or "make Vader look badass and salvage the fact that he's beaten" standpoint, I look for the story to actually make some sort of sense. Which it doesn't. At all. Unless you accept that the Dark Apprentice is a deus ex machina that they came up with that doesn't factor into the story except in its non-canon version.

The first novel has absolutely no "omniscient" declaration that Starkiller is dead. Starkiller himself witnesses Vader declaring him dead. He never learned Qui-Gon's technique. How does he do that?

The second novel doesn't have the Dark Apprentice at all, except Starkiller has a Force vision of being killed by a clone. Kota is convinced he's not a clone, and takes him to a Khommite cloner that tells him:

A) Khommite: The Khommites have been cloning themselves for a thousand years and they've got it down to a fine art. It defines their entire culture.

B) Khommite: You need to know that cloning won't make you immortal, either.

Starkiller: Why not?

Khommite: They've never managed to fix the memory problem. Not even the Khommites. Each clone they make is a new person -- one based to a very large degree on the original, but still one that has its own identiy, its own memories, its own weird quirks. They don't think they're the same person, just different versions of the same template. And that's not immortality. Sorry.

C) Khommite: You see, the other thing no one has ever managed to to copy is Force sensitivity. Worse than that , it actually gets in the way of the cloning process. We don't know how. It just does. The Khommites are aware of the problem and they do everything they can to stamp it out. That's right: they weed out (sic) Force sensitivity. Can you imagine? That's how big the problem is.

Starkiller: What would happen if you tried to clone someone Force sensitive anyway?

It totally makes sense to me that Starkiller is a clone and Sean Williams put this scene in the novel for absolutely no reason because Vader discovered an entirely new type of cloning that the Khommites couldn't figure out in a thousand years of it. He didn't write the scene at all to tell the audience indirectly that Starkiller is actually the original.

The Force Unleashed 2 already has a weak story. I don't understand the desire to completely ruin it by eliminating any sort of logic in it because "Distant Thunder" is totally canon even though no one ever said it was and it leads into the non-canon dark side ending, but we've got to have an all-inclusive continuity!

I don't know, I mean, having read the novel, it seems pretty clear to me that Sean Williams wrote it with quite a bit of indirect references to the fact that Starkiller is, in fact, the original. But I guess maybe since we all worship at the shrine of SW continuity where authorial intent is irrelevant (Vergere was a Sith candidate!), all those things that Sean Williams put in the novel that contradict the idea that Starkiller is a clone don't matter because SW continuity -- by virtue of Distant Thunder -- has decided that he is a clone, so now it's just really messy because against all odds, Vader somehow cloned Starkiller despite all the reasons we're told it couldn't happen. Gee I love SW continuity, it's so great for storytelling.

And I really don't want to hear about Bevel Lemelisk because that was Palpatine, and if it was relevant to Starkiller being a clone or not, then Sean Williams really wouldn't have put the scene with the Khommite in the novel to contradict it. But then again, SW continuity! Where we ignore what the author put in the story to inform us on the plot, and look to other stories that are completely irrelevant!

Posted: Sun Dec 25, 2011 8:46 pm

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Arawn_FennKnight

Joined: 07 Apr 2011Posts: 240Location: Damn you Shonda Rhimes!!!

Crash Override wrote:

So, since he's not a true Sith apprentice because Vader is, he wouldn't betray Vader the same way that Vader is planning to betray Sidious. Those thoughts won't exist until he's a legit Sith apprentice.

That doesn't make much sense. He has no incentive to betray Vader. That would be one of those things that happen for no reason at all, which is made to sound like a problem when it's in the context of writing.

Crash Override wrote:

So he kills the ones that look like healthy human beings (as seen in "Distant Thunder" if we take it for truth)

I don't see how Distant Thunder would lead you to that conclusion.

Crash Override wrote:

but keeps the ones that are mutated and deformed.

Or maybe he kills some of them.

Crash Override wrote:

Yes, it's obvious to me because rather than looking for the story to make sense either from an "all-inclusive continuity" standpoint or "make Vader look badass and salvage the fact that he's beaten" standpoint, I look for the story to actually make some sort of sense.

Making sense "from an all-inclusive continuity standpoint" would theoretically count as making sense.

Crash Override wrote:

If Vader is trying to turn the protagonist back into his service, why have him killed the minute he turns?

Obviously, if Vader has someone killed, he's not trying to turn that someone back into his service.

Crash Override wrote:

we all worship at the shrine of SW continuity where authorial intent is irrelevant (Vergere was a Sith candidate!)

Well, there's the problem with your famous "all-inclusive continuity". Embracing Vergere means deciding that Lucas' own authorial intent is irrelevant. Letting authors retcon previously established canon, while rejecting any attempt at subsequent retcon by other authors, creates a particularly volatile form of "continuity".

Crash Override wrote:

against all odds, Vader somehow cloned Starkiller despite all the reasons we're told it couldn't happen.

It sounds as if Sean Williams came to that conclusion, but I think the game itself creates a very different impression. For example, no one in the game gives voice to this alleged impossibility. So in the hypothetical event that the game designers and Sean Williams differ on this topic, which one would take precedence?_________________Hir yw'r dydd a hir yw'r nos, a hir yw aros Arawn.

Uh, Duh

Posted: Thu Mar 29, 2012 10:15 am

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deathstar3Padawan

Joined: 29 Jan 2012Posts: 24

Galen Marek/Starkiller does turn to the light side. so there's no questions anymore so i just cleared it up for you. ok good. _________________"That's no moon, that's a space station."

-Ben Kenobi

Posted: Mon Jul 09, 2012 10:13 pm

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DarthMRNMaster

Joined: 20 Jul 2011Posts: 516

Crash Override wrote:

I agree, why can't Vader have more than one puppet? Except when Starkiller finally gives into the dark side and plans to kill Vader, he has his other puppet kill him instead of just preventing the death blow. It makes no sense. If Vader is trying to turn the protagonist back into his service, why have him killed the minute he turns?

Dark side does not equal Sith. Even less Sith servant. Vader wants 1126 to serve him and use the dark side. If he kills him, even through anger, Vader is certainly no richer. Besides, for all intents and purposes 1126 is a darksider throughout the whole game anyway. His memories were darkside training, he kills and kills and kills through his anger, driven by selfish need for a woman. In the Wii version, Kota even encourages him to give in to his anger to use the Force Fury mechanic (which should speak for itself IMO). That clone is no lightsider just cause he happens to work with the Rebels against an even bigger darksider for a while, reluctantly and with selfish motives at that. He is a Dark Jedi, and a mentally unstable one at that. Don't let the fact that we see the story from his POV blind you.

If the Dark Apprentice exists, it stands to reason per the dark ending that he was poised to kill 1126 only if Vader was about to die. In the light ending, that doesn't happen, so he could still be there.
1126 agreed to nothing, he resisted, and Vader couldn't overpower him. So why not kill him? I don't know. But since the Empire has been trying to kill him for the entire game, and still Vader bothers trying to bring him in line, it must mean 1126 is valuable to Vader. And why shouldn't he be? All the cost and failures to create only three viable clones, and Vader should just waste one of them frivolously? That is what wouldn't make sense.

And don't forget Vader's ploy would have worked if Juno hadn't attacked him. If he somehow manages to coerce 1126, he will bring him back into line. Unless Vader has another plan, such as infiltrating the Rebel base and eliminating them all to keep the Starkiller project silent, for example.

It isn't obvious, but you don't need the rest of the EU to make sense of the story. Mediocre storytelling, but still intelligible.

Quote:

C) Khommite: You see, the other thing no one has ever managed to to copy is Force sensitivity. Worse than that , it actually gets in the way of the cloning process. We don't know how. It just does. The Khommites are aware of the problem and they do everything they can to stamp it out. That's right: they weed out (sic) Force sensitivity. Can you imagine? That's how big the problem is.

Starkiller: What would happen if you tried to clone someone Force sensitive anyway?

Here, however, paying attention to the whole of the EU becomes sorta inevitable. And since TFU must be based on those very storylines to begin with, that isn't unreasonable.

With that in mind, rationalizing what has happened should be easy:
The Khommites admit not not even wanting clones like this around. Why would they do like Vader, and push for someone halfway stable through mere chance? Also, the game doesn't contradict any of this: 1126 is crazy. He hallucinates and as a result tries to kill Vader. He obsesses over Juno and goes on screaming killer rampages. He has the memories of gruelling and traumatizing Sith training. Forget the unusual circumstances he is under, and try to put him in a civilized setting, or worse, in Jedi training. He would be incarcerated pretty fast.

The Dark Apprentice could be too, but we don't even know if he exists, much less what sort of mental defects he could be harboring. His seconds of screen-time isn't exactly good basis for any sort of conclusion. In the alternative, the perfected cloning process the Dark Apprentice apparently was created under could have included Ysalamiri or some other Force-negating effect, making him perfectly stable without the Khommites being wrong.

Sean Williams motives for including that scene can hardly be to contradict the very source material TFU2 is based upon, right?_________________I discuss to learn, not to win. Then again, learning enough tends to translate to victory in the end anyway.

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 9:23 am

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Darth BaneKnight

Joined: 10 Jul 2012Posts: 326Location: US

Just because Starkiller is not a sith, that doesn't mean he can't be vader's true apprentice. He is just like Ventress. Technically, she isn't a sith, but she is still dooku's apprentice. Same with Oppress

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 10:44 am

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Mad WookKnight

Joined: 14 Apr 2011Posts: 464

Darth Bane wrote:

Just because Starkiller is not a sith, that doesn't mean he can't be vader's true apprentice. He is just like Ventress. Technically, she isn't a sith, but she is still dooku's apprentice. Same with Oppress

Agreed. And it could be argued that none of Sidious's apprentices were true Sith. It doesn't appear any of them were let in on the real Sith secrets. Maybe Maul since he was able to survive death, but Dooku and Vader seem to just be tools.

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 8:29 pm

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DarthMRNMaster

Joined: 20 Jul 2011Posts: 516

Maul was the tool, at least he used to be. I'm not up to speed on the new retcon, so I can't say for sure. And since he was discarded specifically to make room for Ani, Tyranus must have been one as well.

Ani was the big hope for a real apprentice. No question._________________I discuss to learn, not to win. Then again, learning enough tends to translate to victory in the end anyway.

Posted: Thu Jul 19, 2012 10:41 pm

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Mad WookKnight

Joined: 14 Apr 2011Posts: 464

But if you read Shadows of the Empire or other earlier works, you have to get the feeling that Palpatine never shared too much with Anakin. I think it was his way of keeping Vader under his thumb. I mean if Maul and Sidious can both survive death, surely Vader could heal some scorched lungs and skin.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 1:01 am

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HogyMaster

Joined: 14 Dec 2011Posts: 951Location: Nar Shaddaa

Mad Wook wrote:

Darth Bane wrote:

Just because Starkiller is not a sith, that doesn't mean he can't be vader's true apprentice. He is just like Ventress. Technically, she isn't a sith, but she is still dooku's apprentice. Same with Oppress

Agreed. And it could be argued that none of Sidious's apprentices were true Sith. It doesn't appear any of them were let in on the real Sith secrets. Maybe Maul since he was able to survive death, but Dooku and Vader seem to just be tools.

Thing is Maul was a puppet. His Sith status is questionable at most. Rule of two had Plagueis as the Master and Sidious as the apprantance. Maul was a tool. A big FU to the rule of two. A joke (which the Rule of two was at that time IMO). So what if he survived. That doesn't make him anything special. He was only a crazy, garbage eating spider thing before Savage found him and that ***** cured him.

DarthMRN wrote:

Maul was the tool, at least he used to be. I'm not up to speed on the new retcon, so I can't say for sure. And since he was discarded specifically to make room for Ani, Tyranus must have been one as well.

Ani was the big hope for a real apprentice. No question.

I agree. I'm using only Plagueis novel as a saurce here, so forgive me if I've missed something. Mixing Starkiller and half Maul.... Its almost anger posting on my part here and I apologize for it.

Posted: Fri Jul 20, 2012 11:04 am

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DarthMRNMaster

Joined: 20 Jul 2011Posts: 516

Mad Wook wrote:

But if you read Shadows of the Empire or other earlier works, you have to get the feeling that Palpatine never shared too much with Anakin. I think it was his way of keeping Vader under his thumb. I mean if Maul and Sidious can both survive death, surely Vader could heal some scorched lungs and skin.

That is right. Post-suit Vader was a failure, unworthy of Palp's plans, at least until he one day theoretically healed himself. Until such happened, Vader could probably be called a tool too, eventually being replaced completely by Luke as the new big hope. But Ani once was the apprentice with all the potential._________________I discuss to learn, not to win. Then again, learning enough tends to translate to victory in the end anyway.